"Hey! Tonks! Hey, wait up!"
Tonks slowed down slightly but didn't stop which allowed Partridge to catch up with her.
"This better be quick," she told him, nodding at the textbook and stack of parchment in her hands. "Moody wants me to research something and I really don't want to take too long."
"Hallucinogenic and How They Work," Partridge read off the spine of the textbook, tilting his head to one side to do so. "Huh."
"Apparently I need to be able to recognise if someone is trying to incapacitate me or others with these," she told him. "I'm to give a report on each one."
Partridge's eyes widened at that.
"And how many of them are there."
"Too many."
Which is why she having this humongous stack of blank parchment piled high in her arms. Surprisingly, the pile hadn't toppled over on her way here. She was not looking forward to all this research, even if the topic was a bit more interesting than normal. But Moody wanted a full report on each one and did you hear her just say that there were far too many of them? That was going to be days of research. Probably weeks if she was working on it off and on. Which she hoped she would be because she would like to do more than just research with her day. That would be the quickest way to send her to sleep!
On that note, it was a bit weird to be sent away to research something that they hadn't even covered yet. Normally Moody taught her something first and then sent her off. But whatever. At least things were sort of vetting back to normal so she couldn't really complain.
"What did you want, by the way?" Tonks prompted Partridge.
She didn't want to be hanging around, standing in a doorway for an age. And she did have work to do. And surely, he did too?
He looked at her blankly, apparently having forgotten what he wanted to tell her.
"You wanted to tell me something?" She prompted.
"Oh yeah!" He said, shaking his head at himself. "How could I be so daft?"
"I assume that that's a rhetorical question?"
"Did you hear?" He asked, eyes wide, ignoring her comment.
"Hear what?"
She didn't exactly keep on top of all the gossip that went around this place. It was mostly inane stuff like who was sleeping with who or who blew up a wall when they were brewing something (which had been Young, by the way - he wasn't having much luck with Potions).
"About Young!"
"Yeah, I did. Saw the the wall and everything," she assured him.
It had still been smoking when she had walked past and inexplicably smelled like strawberries. Either way the damage was most impressive.
But Partridge was shaking his head.
"No, not that. That's last week's news," he said disdainfully, making her roll her eyes. "You mean you haven't heard?"
"Heard what?"
Not she was getting annoyed. Couldn't Partridge just get to the point already.
But he didn't. Instead, he shook his head with an incredulous look on his face.
"You really haven't heard, have you?"
"Do you want me to hit you with this textbook?" Tonks said by way of an answer.
"Young quit," he blurted out quickly and put his hand over his face. "Please don't hit me."
Her mouth gaped open and she almost lost her grip on the things she was carrying.
"What?"
There was no way she could have heard that right. Obviously, there was still something wrong with her ears and she needed to go get them checked out again. Because there was absolutely no way that she'd correctly heard what Partridge had just said. There was just no way!
Partridge nodded vigorously, his hair flopping all over the place.
"It's true! Young has left. Sighed the parchment work and everything!"
"Are you sure?"
It could be a rumour, couldn't it? A bit of a jok3? Though, Tonks didn't know who would joke about such things. It was pretty serious.
"Definitely, I heard Scrimgeour talk about it to Peterson. Said it was a dammed shame."
Right. It had to be true then. Young had left. Like, actually let and wasn't going to become an Auror. Wow.
She would have honestly thought that Gaffrey would be the next to leave. He was still squeamish about a lot of things though he hadn't thrown up and something in a while. Which she supposed was an improvement. Or maybe even Jean because surely, she would eventually stop being so perky all the damn time? Young was the last person she would have guessed would be the next to leave. It just didn't seem right that he was.
"But why?"
Partridge shrugged. "Apparently he just couldn't hack it anymore."
"I didn't even realise that he was having a hard time!"
He didn't complain as much as the other did. Though, he didn't sing his Mentor's praises either, like Jean did. There was definitely something wrong with that girl. Yeah, she liked Moody training her and all that but at least she still complained about him! Tonks didn't think that she'd heard a word of complaint cross Jean's lips about her Mentor the entire time she'd been here!
But Jean wasn't the problem here. Well, she was a problem but not the current problem. The fact that nobody had realised that Young was struggling so much that he just left was the problem.
"I didn't either," Partridge told her.
"What about Eggleston? Did he know?"
He was the closest to Young, after all. They had been good friends (best friends? Tonks wasn't too sure on that bit) since early years at Hogwarts. Surely je would know what had been going on?
Partridge shrugged. "Don't know. I haven't talked to him."
"He's bound to know."
"Guys don't talk about their feelings like that."
Tonks rolled her eyes at him.
"Telling your friend that you want to quit is hardly talking about your feelings."
"Mm hmm."
Merlin, boys were so stupid sometimes.
"So, he's just gone?"
"Looks like it."
"Can he even do that?"
"Jones did."
"But that was Jones."
Everyone was happy to see him gone. They didn't even question it. It had been bound to happen and that was that. Tonks was still surprised that it had taken him as long as it did what with all the complaining he had done. But Young wasn't Jones. He was Young and although Tonks didn't really know him that well, it seemed so out of character for him.
"Now we're two people down. Ten more to go," Partridge joked.
"That's awful."
"It's the truth."
"You know, you could be a bit more positive," she said, moving towards the door so she could open it.
"Well, what about you?" He asked suddenly, blocking her from getting into the library with an arm.
"What about me?" Tonks asked irritably. "And get out of my way."
"Just one more minute."
She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes but he didn't move. Should she just shove past him? The textbook would probably do most of the work for her... but he had that awfully earnest look on his face. Great. Well, she supposed she could be sociable for a little bit longer.
"Oh, come on," she said, jerking her head towards the door.
The stuff in her arms was starting to feel awfully heavy now.
He beamed at her and carefully held the door open as she walked through.